Song Birds and Water Fowl 



he will call it ninety and nine, and later still, 

 seventy times seven, for throughout the year no 

 two song-sparrows sound just alike. So char- 

 acteristic and instantly recognizable as this 

 bird's vocalization is, it is remarkable how free 

 it is from stereotyped form. Few other songs 

 sound quite so impulsive and unpremeditated. 

 Its message is like the anecdote of a versatile sto- 

 ry-teller, who puts on new fringes every time he 

 tells it, so that the listener never knows just what 

 to expect. Yet with all the diversity of form, 

 the clear sunshine of its tone and its irrepress- 

 ible enthusiasm are the essential qualities that are 

 never lacking, from March until November. 



One of the peculiar pledges of the coming 

 season is in the delicate tints of dawn upon a 

 cloudless morning, that not only burnish the 

 skies and glow throughout the air, but stream 

 through all the earth — clinging to the trees, and 

 getting entangled in the thickets, adorning the 

 willows with bright yellow, purpling the briers, 

 suffusing the red osier with an intense crimson, 

 embrowning the branches of the white birch, and 

 giving a bronzed metallic glint to other birches. 



Whoever reconnoitres in early March must 

 chiefly be content with possibilities; in April 

 he can hunt for certainties. But the last ten 

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